'As late as possible. How about a wedding picture?'
'Oh,' he said. 'Of course. There's a very good picture of the two of them, it's in a silver frame on a table in the living room. I suppose I could have it copied. Do you want me to do that?'
'If it's not too much trouble.'
He asked if he should mail it and I suggested he bring it to his office Monday. I said I'd call and arrange to pick it up. He asked if I'd had a chance to begin the investigation yet and I told him I'd spent the day in Brooklyn. I tried him on a couple of names-Donald Gilman, Janice Corwin. Neither meant anything to him. He asked, tentatively, if I had any leads.
'It's a pretty cold trail,' I said.
I rang off without asking him who he suspected. I felt restless and went around the corner to Armstrong's. On the way I wished I'd taken the time to go back to my room for my coat. It was colder, and the wind had an edge to it.
I sat at the bar with a couple of nurses from Roosevelt. One of them, Terry, was just finishing up her third week in Pediatrics. 'I thought I'd like the duty,' she said, 'but I can't stand it. Little kids, it's so much worse when you lose one. Some of them are so brave it breaks your heart. I can't handle it, I really can't.'
Estrellita Rivera's image flashed in my mind and was gone. I didn't try to hold onto it. The other nurse, glass in hand, was saying that all in all she thought she preferred Sambucca to Amaretto. Or maybe it was the other way around.
I made it an early night.
Chapter 6
Even if I couldn't recall meeting Douglas Ettinger, I had a picture of him in my mind. Tall and raw-boned, dark hair, pallid skin, knobby wrists, Lincolnesque features. A prominent Adam's apple.
I woke up Saturday morning with his image firmly in mind, as if it had been imprinted there during an unremembered dream. After a quick breakfast I went down to Penn Station and caught a Long Island Railroad local to Hicksville. A phone call to his house in Mineola had established that Ettinger was working at the Hicksville store, and it turned out to be a $2.25 cab ride from the station.
In an aisle lined with squash and racquet-ball equipment I asked a clerk if Mr. Ettinger was in. 'I'm Doug Ettinger,' he said. 'What can I do for you?'
He was about five-eight, a chunky one-seventy. Tightly curled light brown hair with red highlights.
The plump cheeks and alert brown eyes of a squirrel. Large white teeth, with the upper incisors slightly bucked, consistent with the squirrel image. He didn't look remotely familiar, nor did he bear any resemblance whatsoever to the rail-splitter caricature I'd dreamed up to play his part.
'My name's Scudder,' I said. 'I'd like to talk to you privately, if you don't mind. It's about your wife.'
His open face turned guarded. 'Karen?' he said. 'What about her?'
Christ. 'Your first wife.'
'Oh, Barbara,' he said. 'You had me going for a second there. The serious tone and all, and wanting to talk to me about my wife. I don't know what I thought. You're from the NYPD? Right this way, we can talk in the office.'
His was the smaller of the two desks in the office. Invoices and correspondence were arranged in neat piles on it. A Lucite photo cube held pictures of a woman and several young children. He saw me looking at it and said, 'That's Karen there. And the kids.'
I picked up the cube, looked at a young woman with short blonde hair and a sunny smile. She was posed next to a car, with an expanse of lawn behind her. The whole effect was very suburban.
I replaced the photo cube and took the chair Ettinger indicated. He sat behind the desk, lit a cigarette with a disposable butane lighter. He knew the Icepick Prowler had been apprehended, knew too that the suspect denied any involvement in his first wife's murder. He assumed Pinell was lying, either out of memory failure or for some insane reason.
When I explained that Pinell's alibi had been confirmed, he seemed unimpressed.
'It's been years,' he said. 'People can get mixed up on dates and you never know how accurate records are. He probably did it. I wouldn't take his word that he didn't.'
'The alibi looks sound.'
Ettinger shrugged. 'You'd be a better judge of that than I would.
Still, I'm surprised that you guys are reopening the case. What can you expect to accomplish after all this time?'
'I'm not with the police, Mr. Ettinger.'
'I thought you said-'
'I didn't bother to correct your impression. I used to be in the department. I'm private now.'
'You're working for somebody?'
'For your former father-in-law.'
'Charlie London hired you?' He frowned, taking it all in. 'Well, I guess it's his privilege. It's not going to bring Barbie back but I guess it's his right to feel like he's doing something. I remember he was talking about posting a reward after she was murdered. I don't know if he ever got around to it or not.'
